Doctors Advise Women About Mammogram Guidelines After COVID Shot
We're learning more and more about any side effects associated with the COVID-19 vaccine and now doctors are advising women about the vaccine and your mammogram.
New data has just been released that is asking women who already got the COVID-19 vaccine to reschedule their yearly mammogram. The reason is that doctors are now seeing that there is a inflammatory response to the vaccine that could lead to a misdiagnosis.
Dr. Brett Parkinson, medical director of Intermountain Healthcare's Breast Care Center had this to say to fox13now.com:
When one receives a vaccination there is an inflammatory response in the arm. In the past four weeks we have seen swollen lymph nodes on screening mammograms of women who have recently been vaccinated. Whenever we see these on a normal screening mammogram we call those patients back because it can either mean metastatic breast cancer which travels to the lymph nodes or lymphoma or leukemia. While inflammation is the body’s normal response to a vaccine, it’s surprising how many swollen lymph nodes we've been seeing. With the Moderna vaccine it’s about 11% after the first dose and 16% after the second dose. We believe it’s comparable for the Pfizer vaccine as well.
Women are now being advised to have their mammograms scheduled before they receive the first dose of the vaccine, or the other option is to wait at least four weeks after receiving the second dose of the vaccine.
Doctors also say that if you do discover any lumps or abnormality by all means have your screening. If there are no problems, then putting off your screening for a few weeks or months shouldn't be a problem.
LOOK: Answers to 30 common COVID-19 vaccine questions
While much is still unknown about the coronavirus and the future, what is known is that the currently available vaccines have gone through all three trial phases and are safe and effective. It will be necessary for as many Americans as possible to be vaccinated in order to finally return to some level of pre-pandemic normalcy, and hopefully these 30 answers provided here will help readers get vaccinated as soon they are able.